Gifts and

ChoicesRights

& ResponsibilitiesJason Kottke based on

commencement speech given at Princeton by Jeff

Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.

Jeff Bozos‘ Story• "We are What We Choose"

Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered to the Class of 2010

Baccalaureate• "At two minutes per puff,

you've taken nine years off your life!"

• "Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to

be kind than clever."• What I want to talk to you

about today is the difference between gifts and choices.

The Difference Between Gifts And Choices

• Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice.

• Gifts are easy — they’re given after all.

• Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your

gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to

the detriment of your choices.

• He goes on, near the end, to illustrate the idea a bit more

directly:

Gifts vs. Choices• How will you use your

gifts? What choices will you make?

• Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your

passions?• Will you follow dogma, or

will you be original?• Will you choose a life of

ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Gifts vs. Choices• Will you wilt under

criticism, or will you follow your convictions?• Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or

will you apologize?• Will you guard your heart against rejection,

or will you act when you fall in love?

Gifts vs. Choices• Will you play it safe, or will

you be a little bit swashbuckling?

• When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be

relentless?• Will you be a cynic, or will

you be a builder?• Will you be clever at the

expense of others, or will you be kind?

Example• When I was in college, I took a

course on the theory of programming languages – fairly arcane computer science stuff.

• For some reason, I just got the material. It just really, really

clicked in my mind. • At the end of the semester on

the day of the final, there were two people (myself and one

other student) in the class who had cinched an A regardless of our performance on the final, which was obviously a relief.

Example• I vaguely knew the other

student, so after the final was over, I caught up

with him just to somewhat debrief on the class with someone else

who really got it.• What I came to find out is

that the other student with an A had put an

absurd amount of work into the class.

Example• He had studied and studied.

He had stayed up late working on every project.

• He told me, quite sincerely, that he had invested more

time in that class alone than he had in all of his other classes combined that

semester.• My ability to get an A in

that class was a gift. • His ability to get an A in

that class was a choice.

We all have Choices• Every single person out there

has gifts. Some of us are very gifted with the ability to make friends easily. Other people

have an innate understanding of a particular topic.

• Every single person out there has a life full of choices.

• You’re choosing what to do with every moment of your

life, whether it’s work or practicing the piano or

watching The Real Housewives of Duluth, MN.

We all have Choices• Quite often, a series of choices can make up for the lack of a gift

possessed by another. • The story above about the student in my computer science class is a

perfect example of this. I find it’s true in my own life, too.• However, the real home runs occur when a person knows their gifts

and makes choices to accentuate that gift.

How have others Made it?• All you have to do is look

at the truth of how the top people in any field

have reached that point. • Yes, they’re resting on

some natural gifts, but those gifts are virtually

always cultivated by countless hours of

practice and other hard choices.

How have others Made it?• Kobe Bryant didn’t wake up

one morning being the best basketball player in the

world. • He has natural gifts, no

doubt, but he constantly makes very difficult choices in terms of his practice regimen,

his diet, and other areas of his life.

• The result? Five rings, a pile of awards, a ticket to the Hall

of Fame, and more money than he can count.

Gifts & Choices• In other words, people

pay money to see the results of gifts matched

with choices. • The real message here is

that gifts are certainly a help, but it is choices that

really take you places.• That’s why I’m a firm

believer that people should follow their

passions.

Passion• A passion means that you’ll

constantly be making those hard choices that build something exceptional.

• Like that student in my class who stayed up all night working on theory of

programming language projects, the results of chasing

a passion are usually very strong.

• Combine them with a few gifts and you have something

amazing. Something people will pay money for.

Your Choice!• What choices will you make

today to build that amazing future?

• Will you choose to spend less money?

• Will you choose to stay up all night getting that project

you’re working on just perfect?

• Will you go home tonight, pull that canvas out of the closet,

and put some paint on it? • The choice is yours.

Salvation Included• God gives the gift of salvation

to those who choose to believe. • Salvation is God’s gift but faith

itself is our choice. • God inspires faith within us by

giving us all the reasons necessary to believe, and in this way he “helps” our “unbelief” (Mk. 9:24), but we ourselves

must do the believing. • He helps our unbelief but He

does not irresistibly force us to believe.

Free Will• He presents the truth to our minds

but we ourselves must yield to the truth and embrace it, we ourselves

must choose to believe.• The word “heart” in the Bible is

commonly used as a metaphor to refer to a man’s will.

• Heart is figurative or symbolic for the human will.

• And the Bible says it is with the heart that men believe. “If thou believest with all thine heart…”

(Acts 8:37) and “…believe in thine heart… for with the heart man believeth…” (Rom. 10:9-10).

Free Will• “How was it that the good God

made is now widely used in ways that are unimaginably

evil?” one thought came to my mind – Free Will

• I once knew a pastor who told me about his views and beliefs

of free will. • He told me that free will never

existed – why? Because the Bible never mentioned it. But I

believe it exists - it is an unmentioned gift that God bestowed upon us and His

angels. • I believe the opposite of free

will does not exist – Why?

Free Will• Because even Balaam’s donkey

had a sense of reason and free will. And animals are not

supposed to have a soul – as far as we know at least.

• And because God is so Holy He cannot even begin to conjure

evil in His own thoughts so how come it entered into our story? • The story of God and the

human race? It’s because of free will.

• Evil is not created. Evil is a choice.

Free Will

• I thought about it and it could just be true that it was free will that started all evil – the choices and little decisions we make each day. • And the more I thought of it, the more that I dreaded it. I just

wished there was absolute good – until I remembered the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

• I was reminded that Jesus had free will of His own. But evil never entered His life. And His free will He used for God’s will – He used

for Good alone.

Free Will

• And it dawned on me that this free will God has gifted us with – we can use it for

good as well because that’s how God originally intended it to be.

• God is so good that He gave men the gift of choice.

• He never interfered – never once did God possess a

human being because He wants us to make choices

of our own.

Free Will• And only through free will can we give 100% unblemished

glory to our God because it will come

from our choice to do so if we choose to.

• By free will we have fallen, by free will we

are saved.

Repent & Believe: A Choice• Jesus commanded men not

only to repent, but to “repent and believe” (Mk. 1:15).

• This means that believing is a person’s choice just as

repenting is a person’s choice. • A command is a declaration

of what you should choose. • Telling men to “repent and

believe” is nonsense unless repenting and believing is

their choice.

Repent & Believe: A Choice• Jesus charged his audience

to “believe the works” that he performed so that they

might believe in his relationship with the Father

(Jn. 10:38; 14:11). • Jesus told his hearers to “believe on the light” or the illumination which he had

given them (Jn. 12:36). • Paul told the jailer in Philippi to “believe on the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16:31).

Repent & Believe: A Choice• All of these examples show that

believing is man’s choice and that it is within man’s ability to

believe. • To speak to men in this way or

manner takes for granted that faith is a choice.

• If faith was not their choice, or if they were not capable of

believing, commanding them to believe would be nonsense. • To tell a man to believe

presupposes that faith is a choice which they are capable

of making.

Unbelief: A Choice• Unbelief also is a personal

choice of the will. Unbelief is a sinners own fault.

• Unbelief is not merely a passive state of the mind; it is an active

state of the heart. • Unbelief is the hearts active

rejection of the truth. • The Bible tells us to “take heed…

lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief…” (Heb.

3:12). “Take heed” implies choice and “evil heart of

unbelief” means that unbelief is not merely of the mind but is of

the will.

Unbelief: A Choice• Unbelief is described as being

deliberate. • “For this people’s heart is waxed

gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have

closed…” (Matt. 13:15; Acts 28:27).

• This shows their personal and intentional choice. Their unbelief

was volitional.• Men purposely turn their ears

away from the truth (Acts 7:57; 2 Tim. 4:4).

• Unbelief is the wills active state of suppressing the truth (Rom. 1:18)

Unbelief: A Choice• “Today if ye will hear his voice,

harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3:15; 4:7). This command

implies that a man chooses to harden his heart or not.

• We are also told that men refused to believe in Jesus Christ (Ps. 118:22; Matt.

21:42; Mk. 12:10; Lk. 20:17; 1 Pet. 2:7)

• Just as faithfulness is obedience, faithlessness is

disobedience.

Unbelief: A Choice• Jesus even rebuked men for

not believing, which implies that it is their choice to

believe or not. • Jesus “upbraided them with

their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they

believed not…” (Mk. 16:14). • Jesus blamed them for their

unbelief, which means that it was their own fault! If it was their own fault, it was

their own choice!

Unbelief: A Choice• It is a self-evident truth that

they could not be blamed if it was not their own fault or

choice. • “Then he said unto them, O

fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” (Luke 24:25).• It would make no sense to

rebuke men for not believing, unless faith and

unbelief is their free choice.

Unbelief: A Choice• Their unbelief was their own

deliberate choice, as implied in the rebuke “slow of heart to

believe…” • Jesus did not look at them in

their unbelief and think, “poor men, God has not yet granted

them the gift of faith”.• He knew that their unbelief

was their own fault, not God’s. We are told that Jesus

“marveled because of their unbelief” (Mk. 6:6).

Its all Choice• If they were incapable of believing, or if God simply did not

grant them faith, Jesus would not have marveled. • There would be nothing to marvel at. Jesus marveled because

they could have and should have believed, but they didn’t. Jesus commanded “be not faithless, but believing” (Jn. 20:27). • Therefore it is our choice to be faithless or believing.

Its all Choice• Wise choices lead to life,

health, and blessings. • Unwise ones can bring heartache, sickness, ruin, and

death. • You have the power to choose! • Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only

one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will

not be taken away from her.”